Asphalt Junkies CLOSED AND GETTING OUR FIX (Page 24)

Sorry to hear Dave.

I will continue to keep you and your family in our prayers.

I'm so sorry, Dave.  I lost my Dad to Parkinson's four years ago.  I understand the relief you feel.  It's a weird feeling.  It's natural.  Just accept it for what it is.  Your Dad has been granted relief from suffering and that is a beautiful thing.  Blessings to you and your family.

Dave,

We'll be praying for you and your family.  Tracy said it well that the feelings you have of relief are natural.  No one wants to see anyone suffer and struggle through pain.  Celebrate the life you have lived with your father and enjoy the memories.

Dave, prayers go out to you and your entire family.  I'll add to the comments that relief is a natural emotion to have.  We lost my wife's dad to colon cancer and my sister to breast cancer, and it's very hard to see your loved ones going through something like that.  Celebrate a life well lived and remember and enjoy all the great times you had. 

Thanks for the link and it's awesome that you're doing something to honor his life.

Condolences to you and your family Dave. I was just thinking you had been quiet and was starting to wonder.

No doubt you will rock your ride for cancer. You have the same fighting spirit as your dad, you have a purpose and you have the support of all your friends and family. $9000 is no joke - that is Awesome!

Dave, I am so sorry for your loss.  I think it is wonderful that you are doing the bike ride in honor of the life of your father.  Best wishes. 

Thank you all, I had intended to ride into work today but I slept in. It seems that I havent been sleeping well these past weeks.

The donations are still rolling in, $10,000 is in sight and its money that IS going to make a difference. My mother and I cried together as well looked at the pile of donations and were told that there was over $6500 donated through the funeral home. 40 or 50 individuals all made contributions. I am proud and I know my dad would be as well.

Now back to triathlon stuff - I lost a week there so I am going to have to step it up a little. I might focus on Running as it is less time away and my mom and I have already discussed me running while she bikes. We are both Choc'o'holics and have put on a few pounds. Long rides will take place when I am at home and I will be starting back at my part time job in May so will be riding the 50miles in and back again (100total) once per week.

The ride I am doing in 100miles day 1 then 100km day 2. I would like to say I will take it easy but I know myself and know that will still push for a 20mph average. Any advice for quick recoverys? Masage will be at the camp after day one.

Dave

Dave, I think that making running the backbone of a tri training program is smart under any circumstances so doing that is great both for your time constraints as well as just your triathlon success.

Massage does wonders to speed recovery and so do CALORIES.  Eat big like a pig after the ride on day 1.  Most definitely drink more fluids than you want.  In fact, after you get done with the ride the first day drink until you pee CLEAR. 

And one more thing you can do do help speed recovery in the legs while sleeping is to wear compression socks.  You can get a pair at most any drug store.  Even though they only cover the lower legs they do help all of the legs.  My guess is that the compression in the calves speeds up the flow of blood through the veins which would ultimately improve the delivery of nutrients to the muscle cells all along the way.

Half marathon advice desired.  I probably know the right thing to do, but want to throw this out there.

The race is 2 weeks from Sunday.  My Achilles is very slightly bugging me.  If I hadn’t been through last year with almost no running due to Achilles issues I’d probably ignore it, but I’m very sensitive to any tweak down there.

I have my typical Thursday 8.5-9 miler planned tonight and was hoping to get some more race pace running.  The plan was to try for 8:05-8:10 for a few miles, and if there is ANY weirdness in the calf/Achilles to revert to easy pace or stop if it doesn’t go away.  I’m wondering if I should even attempt any race pace running right now, or just go for all easy running right up to the race.

This is just me, but...

I would take the day off today.  Running today would make it your 7th consecutive day of running, and while it does seem like you are used to running many days in a row (although in the past month, you have been running mostly 5-6 days consecutively), with this potential old injury flare-up, I would take my precautions... I might try a shorter run tomorrow and see how it goes and re-evaluate... (or I may even take 2 days off...) and in the meantime, I would be doing all the achilles tendonitis exercises I know of!

Faster pace = longer stride = more ankle flexion = more achilles tension

You can do the typical distance but I would do it at your recovery pace to lessen the stress.  I would also concentrate on running with a floppy ankle.  That might sound funny, but it just means that you are still using the ankle, allowing it to move naturally as you run, but not pushing with the toes.  You would be surprised to find that when running on flat ground you don't need it much.

Learning to do this effectively was the main reason I was able to keep running last year with my achilles hurt.  The running actually never made it worse!  (the cycling did more than the running).

I feel pretty confident saying that your performance in your HM won't be diminished by slowing down your running.

This is great stuff.  You are getting very valuable instruction!

I have been doing Thursday afternoon track workouts with my daughter.  We are both introducing our bodies to speed work and the structure of our workouts has been like this:

Warmup (we both run to the track and meet there)

4 laps of 'straights and curves' = 1 mile

4x400 with ample rest.  Pace is best 400 pace we can hold for all 4

Cool down (we both run back to our respective locations)

The 'straights and curves' is a great thing you all can do.  It is simply to use the straights on the track as a 'stride' or 'pick up' and the curves are a slow jog.  A stride is a gradual acceleration to a sprint held for a little bit then ease back down.  The speed obtained is nearly 100% but not quite.  There's no value in straining for the last bit of speed.  So it's just below a full sprint...and the first few are slower yet to allow the body to ease in to the sprints.

I have been struck by how slow I am.  I don't feel old yet I need to realize that I am.  When I was a high school kid I could have turned out these 400s in about 67 seconds.  When I started them a few weeks ago, just doing 1:30 was HARD.  (Today I had improved to 1:20!).

You know that 1:20 is the pace I used to run over an entire 10k.  1:15 for a 5k.  Yikes.

On the other hand, in the 5k at the end of a sprint triathlon I'm playing around with about 1:40!  which blows my mind when I start running fast on the track and realize how close that seems to be to my sprint speed.

Well, here is to a future of improved leg speed.

BTW, to those of you ailing, I need to tell you how my achilles and my low back are 'talking' to me right now.  You've been warned.

Jeff, that sounds like an intense workout.  And great improvement in just a few weeks.  How do you think that speed will translate to your tri running at 5k and beyond?  Would you suggest someone training primarily for longer races (half marathons, or 70.3 tris) do such intense speed work?

It’ll be a long time, if ever, before I do something like 4x400 at max effort, though it sounds fun tp push that hard.  I ran one 440 (yeah, we used yards in those days - I’m wicked old) in high school.  57 seconds and half my stomach later, I vowed never again.  I do enjoy the added strides to my long run as it is fun to let the big dogs out occasionally.

I kinda wish I had run a 5k or a 10k back in the day just so I could have some idea how fast I would have been at those distances, just for comparison as I age, but it’s also fun to be PR’ing post 50.

And if my math is right, 1:20/1/4 mile for a 10k pace is honking at any age...

Tracy that's great to hear that you had another good swim session today. It sounds like you are improving and the work you are doing with your coach is paying off for you. I always find it very satisfying when you come away tired from a workout and you know you had a good workout. I look forward to days like that.

Haha, right to guns on that one!  I was being too nice to point out "where's the easy pace approach"!

Yes!  You knew the answer before you asked the question.  I think you should keep the running easy.  I know what you are thinking, "I need to feel some race pace stuff or I might crash during my race."  Rest asssured you will be running with a lot of adrenaline and excitment and these will most certainly carry you through the race.

Running like Jeff is suggesting will help too.  Make sure you get a lot of calf stretching and I also suggest you warm up with some negative calf raises and cool down with some of them too.  I have been doing this since my achilles was giving me trouble and it has proved very successful.